[HN Gopher] The Cold War Fashion Showdown
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       The Cold War Fashion Showdown
        
       Author : benbreen
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2021-08-02 18:03 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thereader.mitpress.mit.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thereader.mitpress.mit.edu)
        
       | cafard wrote:
       | Somewhere Ortega y Gasset, writing in the 1920s or 1930s, said
       | that the British had the worst-dressed men in Europe, simply
       | because they had matters of real importance to deal with.
        
       | dr-detroit wrote:
       | CIA has declassified all their reports from this era. They sent
       | extremely wealthy socialites over and all they did was complain
       | daily about how the free sausage line was 8 people long in
       | downtown Moscow (the horror!) and they could only buy 10
       | varieties of boots (not enough!!!).
       | 
       | Fashion is antihuman.
        
       | assbuttbuttass wrote:
       | We're still doing cold war propaganda 30 years later?
        
       | jchallis wrote:
       | There was a vintage Wendy's ad in the 1980s that spoofed just
       | this lack of "fashion" sense.
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CaMUfxVJVQ
        
       | dvh wrote:
       | All workers in that era wore these working clothes:
       | 
       | https://www.tifantex.sk/fotky39121/fotos/_vyrp11_35pracovne-...
       | 
       | We called them "monterky". They were terrible. They didn't even
       | had belt loops, you couldn't put any gear on you, as if they were
       | designed to lower the productivity. The only thing they were good
       | for was standing around with hands in your pockets. That's why
       | communism failed.
        
         | twic wrote:
         | In the '80s, the western countries were terrified of Japan
         | because they feared they would soon develop the technology for
         | trousers to have _two_ belts. The productivity lead would have
         | been unassailable.
        
           | cafard wrote:
           | Is that why one isn't supposed to wear a belt and suspenders,
           | for fear of overproduction?
        
         | dr-detroit wrote:
         | Those wearables wont even sync with my iLife and appleThoughts!
        
       | motohagiography wrote:
       | The mystery of writing about fashion is why it matters. Bierce's
       | "a despot whom the wise ridicule and obey," covers it. When you
       | look at it as how people signal their alignment to what they
       | percieve as power, it makes more sense.
       | 
       | The article was essentially about who leads and who follows, and
       | how they could tell, where when russians wore copies of western
       | suits, the writing was on the wall, even if it would be decades
       | before the wall came down.
       | 
       | There is another piece to fashion, where it is a way to assess
       | real desire. There are opinion polls and things people lie about,
       | and then there are what they actually do. Envy for american
       | fashions could have (and ultimately did) contribute to erosion of
       | the soviet edifice. I remember hearing stories about how in the
       | 80's, the vintage shops we all liked in the punk scene had made
       | money by getting used jeans here to ship to Germany so they could
       | be smuggled into Eastern Germany.
       | 
       | Turns out the stories weren't apocryphal either, a transcript:
       | https://www.businessinsider.com/brought-to-you-by-podcast-bt...
       | 
       | Such interesting times.
        
         | mc32 wrote:
         | >" where when russians wore copies of western suits, the
         | writing was on the wall..."
         | 
         | I don't think that's quite right.
         | 
         | I think it's more a reflection of the despot being dead
         | (Stalin) and being free of that shackle.
         | 
         | The UK and North America used to follow French fashion (hats,
         | dresses, textiles, etc) that didn't mean the French were
         | winning (be it economic, cultural or otherwise) aristocracy
         | just thought they had forward fashion sense.
        
           | motohagiography wrote:
           | On that last point, the House of Bourbon would probably
           | disagree. They had rulers all over the world, and UK
           | aristocrats adopting their fashion was arguably a nod to
           | their ascendency, and as a way to distinguish themselves with
           | with signals of the global and exotic.
           | 
           | After the revolution/terror, french fashion was out until the
           | rise of the industrial middle class. It was during/after the
           | restoration that French brands like Charvet and Hermes were
           | founded (c. 1830's) and still later, Louis Vuitton, and they
           | once again became ascendent on the global stage. Themes in
           | fashion are a pretty good macro signal for where growth is
           | going.
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-06 23:03 UTC)